The author of "How To Find Big Stocks" makes cents with today's news...inspired by PTBS

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Is Facebook Sitting On The Next Big Thing, Or Are They Close To Becoming Big Brother?

I have discussed the endless possibilities of a real time search engine that uses images and how it will completely disrupt MANY industries.

Using Facebook's "face tagging", which creates a very powerful database AND the endless number of security cameras could truly be the next big thing.

The new FaceDeals camera from Facebook has the potential to completely disrupt "search" as we know it.

As Google's Eric Schmidt said "Give us 14 images of you and we can find other images of you within 95% accuracy". Well how many photos are you already tagged on Facebook?

Where Google searches for documents on the Net, Facebook could search for people in the real world. The security cameras become a search engine for the physical world.

This story has me wondering...Is Facebook Sitting on The Next Big Thing?

The Facebook Camera can recognize you every time you walk into a shop. (From DailyMail UK)

Shoppers could soon be automatically recognised when they walk into a shop using a controversial new camera.

Called Facedeals, the camera uses photos uploaded to Facebook to recognise people as they walk in.

Shoppers who agree to use the system, which has not been developed with Facebook, will be offered special deals.

The Facedeal camera can identify faces when people walk in by comparing
Facebook pictures of people who have signed up to the service

All day long these cameras are creating data.

Just imagine the power Facebook could have if they turned these cameras into real time search engines.
Say you want to find a specific person. The facebook database would be able to tell you the last location and time they spotted this person (and who they were with).

As Eli Pariser writes in the book The Filter Bubble (highly recommended), "the ability to search by face will shatter many of our cultural illusions about privacy and anonymity"